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I don't think you understand the proficiency needed to comfortably consume content in another language. Save for a few hotspots (Benelux, Nordics) most people say "yes, I speak a second language" because when they focus hard, they can say "me wants toilet" and that's enough for their use case (holiday abroad once a year). My mother is a teacher of English but when I brought a friend who only spoke English, I had to translate the conversation between them. This is the reality of bilingualism in small towns.


Most ESL people (And by definition most english speakers) are at least bilingual

A significant part of Africa, Benelux, The Nordics, a huge part of the indian subcontinent, most expats in any country, Canada...

Even if you live in a purely Monoglot country (And those are less common than people think), in absolute numbers it's a lot of people


Maybe in those countries. In any case, it's considerably easier to read and listen than write and speak.




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